Why were the people confounded when the disciples spoke at Pentecost?
The crowd was confounded because each person heard the disciples speaking in his own known language rather than an unknown guttural noise. The miracle was that God enabled these Galilean fishermen to speak the various languages of the Jews gathered from many lands, languages not intrinsic to their education.
Les explains that Gentiles had nothing to do with Pentecost; it was Jewish. Jews had come from all over the known world, many displaced from Israel for generations, from places like Babylon and Spain, all speaking different languages. The miracle of Pentecost was that God gave the apostles the gift to speak all the languages of the massive crowd before them. Verse 6 says they were confounded because every man heard them speak not in an unknown guttural noise but in a language they could understand. This was the first time in Scripture that the Holy Spirit gave men the gift of speaking known languages that were not intrinsic to their own education. Peter and most of the disciples came from Galilee, uneducated fishermen, yet suddenly they were speaking the various languages evident on the day of Pentecost.
Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
More Questions
What really happened when the disciples spoke in tongues at Pentecost?
At Pentecost, the twelve disciples were speaking the languages of the Jewish pilgrims who had come from all over the empire, so each person could understand in his own language.
Who were the foreign-born people who heard the disciples at Pentecost?
The multilingual visitors at Pentecost were Jews who had relocated to foreign countries and had been assimilated, adopting the local languages.